Golden Goose Awards illuminate the importance of research funding

Scientists recognized for using marshmallows used to test children’s self-control, using cats to gain vision understanding, and mapping human populations for unexpected outcomes

By Tom Reller Posted on 6 October 2015

Share story:

Federally funded scientific research has a zealous advocate in US Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee. As the “father” of the Golden Goose Award, he spoke passionately about how the government is failing to fund important research at the level needed.

Science is the purest definition of a public good. That's what economists would say that individuals don't support the needed funding, but governments and societies as a whole must support it. Elsevier knows this; our institutions know this. The colleges and universities of America are the glory of the world, and we need to keep their research base strong and we do that through government funding.

The Congressman made those remarks September 17 in the presentation of the 2015 Golden Goose Awards at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, which was attended by policymakers and more than 400 members of the scientific community.

Each year, Golden Goose showcases seemingly obscure studies that have led to results with significant societal impact. Recipients are selected by university research leaders and leading scientists in related disciplines and honored at an annual award ceremony.

The concept of the Golden Goose Awards is about the importance of basic research and the academic freedom to pursue research however the researcher feels appropriate. The best person to understand where the research should go is the researcher himself or herself. … By allowing scientists to follow their noses, over time we can attack the biggest challenges that research faces in the world.

The 2015 winners

Using marshmallows to determine children’s self-control. Psychologists Dr. Walter Mischel, Robert Johnston Niven Professor Of Humane Letters in the Department of Psychology, Columbia University; Dr. Yuichi Shoda, Department of Psychology, University of Washington; and Dr. Philip Peake, Professor, Chair of the IRB, Smith College have had their research supported for over 50 years by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation. Dr. Mischel was once told he should seek funding for his “Marshmallow Test” from a candy manufacturer, not the NIH. But the NIH saw smart science in the 1960s, when Dr. Mischel proposed testing the ability of young children to resist the impulse to eat a single marshmallow when waiting would get them two treats instead of one. Those initial Marshmallow Tests have led to extraordinary findings linking children’s self-control to later life outcomes and to methods for teaching self-control and improving lives. Read more.

Using cats to understand vision. Nobel Laureates Dr. Torsten Wiesel and the late Dr. David Hubel, whose early research involved cats staring at black dots on a screen, are responsible for major progress in our understanding of the brain, for significant advances in the treatment of childhood cataracts, and for informing current research to enable computers to process images more like the human mind. But their extraordinary federally funded research really took off with a simple, fortuitous accident with the kittens in their lab: somebody pushed a glass slide too far on an overhead projector. Read more.

Mapping the altitude of human populations. Mathematical Population Biologist Dr. Joel E. Cohen, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Populations at the Rockefeller University; and Geophysicist Dr. Christopher Small, Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, were simply pursuing a shared curiosity with support from the National Science Foundation when they produced the first global study of “hypsographic demography” – how human populations are distributed with respect to altitude. Their work has had an unexpectedly broad impact, touching areas as diverse as food production and packaging, semiconductor manufacturing, and cancer and other biomedical research and development. Read more.

Mobed spoke of the need for continued science funding from the government:

Research funding around the world is being challenged. It's being challenged from the point of view of funding (and) the value to society it can demonstrably deliver back to the funders. What's remarkable is that in the last few years, one of the most consistent themes I hear from researchers is the need to be able to demonstrate return to the funders while at the same time pursuing science in the way it needs to be done.

Awards such as the Golden Goose Awards are one way to help researchers strike that balance between needed research and the value it has in societal and economic impacts.

Why is it called the Golden Goose Award?

Like the fabled goose that laid the golden egg, federally funded research has yielded extraordinary and unexpected returns. Out of odd sounding or obscure beginnings have come amazing advancements that have improved each of our lives.

The Golden Goose Award was founded in 2012 by a coalition of business, university and scientific organizations. US Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN) came up with the idea as a response to the Golden Fleece Award created by the late Senator William Proxmire (D-WI), which targeted wasteful federal spending that often included peer-reviewed science that sounded odd. While such research is easily singled out, it often reflects a broader fundamental misunderstanding of how science works and how such research can prove valuable to society regardless of its frivolous-sounding nature. Rep. Cooper believed such an award was needed to demonstrate the inherent value of basic research regardless of its immediate practical application.

This video is about the award and the stories behind this year's winners.

Who's behind the Golden Goose Award?

The Golden Goose Award Steering Committee is made up of individuals from the Founding Sponsors of the Award, Benefactors of the Award, and universities who helped launch the Award in 2012. The following are represented on the committee:

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Association of American Universities

Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

Breakthrough Institute

Elsevier

Progressive Policy Institute

Richard Lounsbery Foundation

The Science Coalition

Task Force on American Innovation

United for Medical Research

University of Pennsylvania

Vanderbilt University

Read the winners’ research

We have made the award-winning research they published with Elsevier freely available. For each winner, they are presented in order of top-cited.

Elsevier Connect Contributor

As VP and Head of Global Corporate Relations at Elsevier, Tom Reller (@TomReller) leads a global team of media, social and web communicators for the world's largest provider of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information products and services. Together, they work to build on Elsevier's reputation by promoting the company's numerous contributions to the health and science communities, many of which are brought to life in this online community and information resource: Elsevier Connect.